Apple Television SDK in May 2013? [Analyst]

Analyst Peter Misek is making the news today as he has published a round of predictions (speculations) concerning Apple. This one concerns Apple’s HDTV (let’s call it iTV), and according to Mr. Mysek, Apple is going to introduce a software development kit (SDK) that would support a 42″ to 55″ iTV product. We take it that Peter Mysek means that Apple will *secretly* introduce the SDK to a very small group of key developers, but he didn’t explicitly mention anything secret or confidential. It would be very unlikely that Apple introduced an SDK for an upcoming product before the effective launch of that iTV.Now, we should warn you to take all of this with a large grain of salt: Analysts have been wrong over and over when predicting anything that related to the Apple television, or iTV. First of all, it seems that Apple has not solved the content licensing problem, and you can imagine that studios would rather not see Apple becoming their primary customers. Their existing channels (cable) are doing great and the last thing they want is some kind of dinosaur-ending environmental change.

Without new, broad and exclusive content, an iTV system with apps could be a great way to deliver apps, but frankly it’s nothing that the $99 box could not do today. If Apple could start allowing apps on the existing Apple TV box, that would be quite a jump at this point – I can believe that, and that would be a very good thing for Apple, developers and users. If Apple launches a TV, it has to bring a lot to the table, and right now, it’s not clear what it would bring. What would you want in an iTV?